The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus and a firmware updating method of the same, particularly to a firmware updating technology.
In an image forming apparatus, firmware serves as a control program and is priorly stored in storage such as a hard disk drive (HDD). Also, in the image forming apparatus, a firmware updating job is performed according to a firmware version update that is released by a manufacturer of the image forming apparatus to do such things as improve functions of the image forming apparatus.
When an image forming apparatus is connected to a server of the manufacturer, the image forming apparatus receives new firmware from the server according to an operation by a person such as a worker and a firmware updating job is performed. When the image forming apparatus is not connected to the server, the image forming apparatus acquires the new firmware from a portable storage device such as USB memory that the person such as a worker connects to the image forming apparatus after storing the new firmware therein. Thus, the new firmware updating job is performed. Because of this, when a large number of image forming apparatuses are not connected to the server, large amounts of time and effort are required to update those image forming apparatuses with the new firmware.
An updating method for new firmware is known for an image forming apparatus that is not connected to a server. According to this method, effort for a person such as a worker can be reduced. An image forming apparatus that has been updated with the new firmware serves as a host device and advertises the new firmware to another image forming apparatus that is not connected to the server (another image forming apparatus that is connected to an intranet such as a company local area network (LAN) and serves as a client device). Then, the other image forming apparatus (client device) accesses the image forming apparatus (host device) using a peer-to-peer system and determines whether or not the new firmware is necessary. When it is determined that the new firmware is necessary, the other image forming apparatus (client device) receives the new firmware from the image forming apparatus (host device) and performs the new firmware updating job.